Recession Recovery and Beyond
Study Committee Meeting October 20, 2010 Clanzenetta “Mickee” Brown JCCI Study Planner mickee@jcci.org
In attendance: Study Committee Members: Elaine Brown (Chair), Parvez Ahmed, Mark Alexander, Donald Anderson, Danita Andrews, Christine Arab, Sarah Boren, Lori Boyer, Lisa Broward, Catherine Burkee, Lacree Carswell, Cathy Chambers, Jeane Chappell, David Cohen, Jim Crooks, Marilyn Feldstein, Jason Fischer, Pam Gerrish Nelson, Daniel Gilham, Andrea Goldman, Ken Hamilton , Gabriel Hanson, Cynthia Harpman, Robert Hawkins, John Hirabayashi, David Johnson, Bill Larson, Conrad Markle, Bill Mason, Karen Mathis, Colleen McFarlane, Neil McGuinness, Alison Miller, Candace Moody, Amy Moring, Elexia Moss, Cheryl Murphy, Cardoza Rasheed, Granville Reed, Marvin Reese, Darryl Register, Steve Rieck, Jim Robinson, Katie Ross, Mario Rubio, Nick Sacia, Kathy Sandusky, Patrice Seetram, Jeff Sheffield, Beth Slater, Dorcas Tanner, Michelle Tappouni, Brian Teeple, Melissa Terbrueggen, and Tina Wirth [If your name does not appear, but you were in attendance, please let us know.] Staff Members: Mickee Brown, Skip Cramer, Demetrius Jenkins, and Ben Warner Meeting Time: Noon-1:30 p.m. Discussion: JCCI Executive Director, Skip Cramer thanked the committee for their participation and reviewed JCCI’s Forum Decorum, which are the rules by which all meetings are run. Skip then introduced the study chair, Elaine Brown and thanked her for serving. Elaine also thanked the committee for its participation and asked everyone in the room to introduce themselves by giving their name and affiliation. Study planner Mickee Brown described each of the documents in the handout packet and discussed the role of the study committee in relation to the roles of the study chair, management team, and staff. Mickee also provided an overview of the study process that begins with fact finding, information gathering, and learning and closes with group consensus on the findings, conclusions, and recommendations. Elaine explained that the management team had met four times prior to today’s meeting. During which the team worked on the meeting schedule and approved the study issue statement that had also been approved by the JCCI board of directors. Elaine asked the study committee to review the issue statement as well for their approval. One study committee member asked for clarification regarding the expanse of the Northeast Florida region as mentioned in the issue statement. Staff answered that the region does not include Alachua County (Gainesville), but encompasses the seven Cornerstone counties (Baker, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Nassau, Putnam, and St. Johns). No other questions or corrections were offered and the issue statement was entered as approved. Elaine introduced the day’s speaker, Peter Rummell of the Florida Council of 100 and Chair of the Jacksonville Civic Council to present on Florida‟s Economic Future. .
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Speaker Presentation The focus of the presentation will be global in nature with some emphasis on strategy - where I think we are going and how we might get there. I will also discuss the Jacksonville Civic Council and the recent chamber trip to Indianapolis. It is good to have a room full of diverse opinions, but it can also be difficult to reach agreement on where to focus. Right now Jacksonville is in a ditch. We need focus and strong leadership to move past the crises we face. If Jacksonville is guilty of anything it is a lack of focus. My opinions are filtered by years of experience working in Florida and other communities. I have seen many economic downturns, but this one is different (We‟re in the same theater, but this time its showing a very different movie). If you stopped one out of five people on the street today, that one person will either be unemployed or will not have the kind of job they use to have (underemployed). When people can not pay their bills or take care of their family it affects that person’s soul and the whole community. Strategy for moving the community forward For the first time in memory, we are a point in history where our children may not do as well as the previous generation. Despite my inherent optimism, the things that worked in the past to rebound from recession and grow the economy may not work today. Florida has been blessed for a long time with a variety of resources and growth. The state could always count on a certain number of people moving to the state to live and retire, and this has made us complacent. Over the past 40 years from 1960 to 2010 Jacksonville’s population has grown 62 percent while four of our competitor cities - Tampa, Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale, and Charlotte have an average growth rate of 175 percent. The implications of being outpaced 3-to-1in terms of population growth over such a long period of time indicate that the problems facing Jacksonville are endemic and structural. The city is at an inflection point and Jacksonville’s next Mayor’s race is critical. Having just returned from the Chamber trip to Indianapolis it was clear that one of the keys to their success was consistent, strong leadership over 36 years through four great mayors. Jacksonville must decide what we want to be and define what success looks like. The study committee should not get bogged down with a single specific issue, like the port, and lose the issue of the past 40 year trend. We will emerge from this recession very slowly and this is the time to decide what we can do to make sure the next 20 years are better than the last. Jacksonville Civic Council Jacksonville’s informal non-group was formalized to create the Jacksonville Civic Council and is modeled on the Greater Kansas City Civic Council (CEO-led with appropriate other inputs), most progressive cities, have an equivalent civic council. These councils are the “private” in public private partnerships and focus their efforts on strategic community involvement. At its inception, we attempted to give the Jacksonville Civic Council a regional focus and did not succeed though there are some CEOs from St. Johns County. This may need to be revisited in the future. The Jacksonville Civic Council is not looking to reinvent anything. It is most efficient and it saves 2434 Atlantic Boulevard
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time to find what is working and replicate that success. We are seeking to participate in areas where we can make a difference and where we have credibility. The Civic Council also wants to work in areas where there are few if any effective champions. The first two key focus areas are downtown and the City of Jacksonville’s budget. Other areas are being explored as well. Downtown: The Civic Council has already organized a sophisticated look at Downtown Jacksonville. We believe that great cities have great downtowns. The Mayor of Indianapolis has a quote that applies to this perspective, “You can’t be a suburb of nothing.” It follows that a region has to be centered on something in order to thrive. The challenge is getting started (i.e. which project, what area, housing or retail, etc.) and governance (i.e. structure, funding, priorities, etc.). The solution for downtown Jacksonville is the answer to the question, “How do you get a guy who lives in Mandarin and shops in Orange Park to care about downtown Jacksonville?” City budget: The budget is a mess and the structure is not viable. A major subset of the city’s budget problems is the pension system – a monster issue that needs immediate attention. Burgeoning medical industry: Though there are many disparate interests, the medical community has leaders, institutions, programs, and personnel that provide an opportunity for branding Jacksonville. Jaguars: The Team Teal effort has been very successful in encouraging ticket sales to eliminate blackouts. This is important because the Jaguars are a business that we want to keep and the team is an enhancement to the city’s brand. We do not want to be known as a city that lost its NFL franchise. Education: This is an area of interest to the Civic Council, but there are already a wide range of groups working on this issue. Still, it is such an overwhelmingly important concern, that we may not be able to resist making a foray into this area. Chamber Leadership trip to Indianapolis Indianapolis is a city in the middle of nowhere: It is the “only” major city in Indiana. Jacksonville is very comparable in terms of population and size, though Indianapolis has far fewer obvious natural amenities than Jacksonville. Despite not having the great natural assets or strategic geographic advantages of some other cities Indianapolis has experienced success due to a focused agenda and leadership. When comparing Indianapolis to other cities, including Jacksonville, Indianapolis is that kid who grew up with nothing who outperforms the kids who grew up with everything. Indianapolis is driven by strong leadership in both the public and private sectors. Over the past 36 years there have been four strong mayors – Democrats and Republicans – who each picked up where the last mayor left off in building downtown – and with it, the region. The mayors each remained focused by sustaining the vision. The Indianapolis brand is also very strong. Everyone espouses the same message. In marketing that is called brand essence. The donor community in Indianapolis, led by the Eli Lilly Endowment, is very strong as well and funds education, arts, and cultural endeavors. A notable result of regionalism is the joint Indiana University and Purdue University campus in downtown Indianapolis (IUPUI). Conclusion What do we want to be in Jacksonville? What makes us who we are? What is our brand essence? Until we know the answers to these questions we do not know where we are going and as the old saying goes – “any road will get you there”. For instance, what if our brand was “Best K-12 education system in the country”? It is powerful, applies to all and is using tools we already have. 2434 Atlantic Boulevard
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Questions and Answers Q. What are the key issues regarding the slow population growth in Jacksonville as compared to the cities mentioned earlier? Is it quality of life issues like crime, the murder rate, etc? What is the role of diversity and race relations with respect to growth? Rummell: Quality of life is an issue, but that alone does not explain why growth has been three times as high in Tampa, Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale, and Charlotte. What we know is that people are deciding to live elsewhere at a greater rate than Jacksonville. Race relations are an area that the Jacksonville Civic Council is discussing. We have Nina Waters and Bryant Rollins helping us determine how we can be effective in this area. Q. How do the first 20 years and second 20 years of the trend compare considering the first 20 years included Jacksonville’s reputation as a city with an odor problem among other issues that have since improved? Rummell: The goal for collecting the data was to look at long term population growth in cities similar to Jacksonville. The 40 year trend data clearly indicates that people have chosen to live in competitor cities at higher rates rather than Jacksonville. Q. Would a focus on k-12 education take care of the other problems that the community faces? Rummell: A strong education system will have an inoculating effect. Excellent outcomes in public elementary and secondary schools will improve our quality of life, including educational attainment, crime, and the murder rate in less than a generation. Despite its successes, Indianapolis has its own education challenges – their system is worse than Jacksonville’s. Q. Accenture released a study (A New Era of Sustainability) indicating that 93 percent of CEOs believe that sustainability (environmental, social, and governance) issues will be critical to the future success of their businesses. Should our community focus greater attention on sustainability as a brand? Rummell: From a branding perspective, the mayor of the city with the best k-12 education system will have greater success than the mayor of the most sustainable city. Focus on doing one thing well. I think Education is a stronger “brand.” Q. What are some solutions for creating jobs in the short term? Rummell: I am not an expert on this, but we may need to take what we can get for now. Q. Does Indianapolis have a consolidated government? Rummell: Yes. As a matter of fact, Jacksonville was the model for their consolidation. However, the city/county functions are not fully consolidated – there are multiple school districts, police and fire departments. Q. What are the 2-3 steps that the community needs to take to move forward? Rummell: It starts with governance and leadership. Elaine thanked the speaker and excused him so that the committee could discuss his comments. 2434 Atlantic Boulevard
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[Staff note: Before the consensus building part of the meeting began, Skip Cramer who attended the Indianapolis leadership trip added that the Indianapolis area is a regionally focused community. The surrounding counties take the position that „as Indy goes, so goes the region‟. The region‟s players focus on “co-ompetition”, a slurry of collaboration, cooperation, and competition. Being both the “only” city in the state and the state‟s capital has made regional cooperation possible.] What did you learn? Efforts fail locally due to the lack of focus. We are in a ditch and in order to get out we need focus and leadership. More data is needed to support whether or not what is working in other cities is effective. Those migrating to the community are excited about the possibilities available in Jacksonville. JCCI already covered the issues related to branding the community and the improving the local talent pool in the 2006 study, Attracting and Retaining Talent (ART): People and Jobs for the 21st Century. [Note: To read the ART study, please visit www.jcci.org] Aspiring to have the best K-12 education system in the country is insufficient when today’s graduates are competing with peers all over the world. We need world class education systems. This is a regional study, so the conversation about K-12 education should focus on how the seven public education systems in northeast Florida can work together rather than focusing on issues related to Duval County’s public schools. Jacksonville has missed opportunities to make improvements in key areas over the past 40 years, however slow growth is better than the problems caused by the fast paced growth as experienced in the other communities that were mentioned. We need to look beyond Florida for possible solutions. What was surprising? The rate of population growth in Jacksonville is significantly lower than the growth of Florida’s other major cities. The Indianapolis public school system does not perform as well as Duval County’s school district. What else would you like to know? What is the best school district in the country and how is that community fairing economically? Other comments The only way to improve the city is by changing the name of the city. This study is too big: If anything comes of this I’ll be surprised. Elaine asked the committee to complete the Group Process Check form and adjourned the meeting at 1:35 pm.
2434 Atlantic Boulevard
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